Second Chance
by Naodrith
Summary: Following "The Crest of Kindness," Ken's despair and guilt threaten to engulf him...until a mysterious stranger offers him a chance to change everything. How? By traveling back in time and becoming one of the Season One Digidestined.
1. Prologue

A/N: Hmm...let's pretend that this takes place shortly after "Crest of Kindness," okay? Keaira is an OC who won't be important after the prologue, and / marks denote italics.  
Prologue  
"You're drowning in despair, you know."  
  
Ken sat up in bed, his dark, tangled hair falling over his pale skin. He blinked hard and rubbed his eyes, exhausted. Great, he'd finally managed to fall asleep, and now someone was in his room saying...what?  
  
"Who are you?" he asked suspiciously. He could see the vague outline of the speaker, a slender young woman with long hair  
  
"Keaira," she said. "But I'm not important. I just came here to warn you that if you don't snap out of it and forgive yourself, everybody's doomed."  
  
"Yeah, right," Ken moaned. He flopped back onto his bed. "Go away. You'll wake my parents, and they'll know I'm awake, and they'll ask me questions I can't answer."  
  
She was silent for a long time, until he finally had to roll over and make sure she'd left. She hadn't. "Are you going to listen to me now?" she asked.  
  
"Fine." He watched the ceiling determinedly, refusing to give her the satisfaction of knowing she had his full attention.  
  
"Ken, what you did was terrible. I won't deny that. A lot of Digimon got hurt, or killed. But that's over. It's done with. You're way too depressed. All is not lost."  
  
"Yes, it is," he snapped. "Wormmon's lost. He's my only friend. Thus, everything is lost."  
  
Her tone changed, became amused. "You really don't know much of anything, do you?"  
  
"Did you come here to torment me, or did you actually have a purpose in mind?"  
  
"I'm here to offer you another chance."  
  
"There are no second chances." He spoke automatically, recalling something Osamu had told him long ago.  
  
"Not in your ordered little life, but if you hadn't noticed, you belong to a somewhat more chaotic realm now."  
  
"Just leave me here to die. It's what I deserve."  
  
Keaira rubbed her forehead. "Am I going about this the wrong way?"  
  
"That depends, what way are you going about it?"  
  
"I'm trying to be somewhat subtle, you idiot. So, I guess I have to be blunt. Wormmon isn't dead, Digimon can't die, you're a Digidestined, and I'm offering you a chance to go back in time and never be the Kaiser at all!"  
  
Ken sat up, finally showing some interest. "I don't believe you. I know /everything/ about the Digiworld, and I didn't know they come back!"  
  
"That's because Elecmon managed to hide Primary Village from you!"  
  
"Stop raising your voice! You'll wake my parents!"  
  
Keaira obediently lowered her voice, but continued to speak fiercely. "I'm giving you a chance to have everything you ever wanted! Now take it already so I can get out of here!"  
  
He shook his head. "You can't give my brother back."  
  
"I can't."  
  
His point proven, Ken collapsed back into his pillows.  
  
"...but you can."  
  
"What?"  
  
She smiled, the grin barely visible in the soft light of dawn. "That's what I said. I'm going to send you back three years. You'll become a part of the first set of Digidestined. If you work it right, you can save your brother, your partner, maybe even the world. But only if /you/ do it right."  
  
"I never do anything right..."  
  
"Well, you'd better do this right, because you only get one chance. Are you gonna take it or leave it, kid?"  
  
Ken resented being called 'kid,' but there was nothing he could do about it, was there? "So it's time-travel."  
  
"In a way, yes."  
  
"Do I still exist?"  
  
"Yes, as a child. But you - the present you - will...oh, it's complicated, would you just formally agree so I can send you back?"  
  
Ken crossed his arms over his chest, a fake pout on his face. "I have to admit I'm intrigued, but I'll need more information."  
  
Keaira groaned. "You're impossible. Okay. I propose that you rewrite history. Make up a new you, join the Digidestined - they'll never know the difference! Help them, you help yourself."  
  
"But how is joining them going to help my brother?"  
  
"You have to figure that out on your own, kid."  
  
"Please don't call me that."  
  
"Yeah, yeah. So do you agree?"  
  
Ken's mind whirled. It was all so sudden...it would never work...he was probably hallucinating...  
  
"Yes..."  
  
"Good." She clapped her hands. "I have three suggestions for you. First of all, you know the Crests of the older Digidestined - so use that knowledge. Second, the Digidestined have a bad habit of splitting up and thus getting into trouble, so when you can, prevent that from happening. Third...there's a Digimon called Demidevimon. Help him, and he might help you."  
  
"Okay. But...do I still exist back then as a little kid? Isn't that kind of a paradox? What happens to me when it's over with?"  
  
Keaira shrugged. "Hey. You said yes. You figure it out. Quite frankly, it makes /my/ head hurt."  
  
Ken opened his mouth to protest, but didn't get a chance to speak before swirling lights engulfed him. 


	2. And So It Begins

Chapter 1: And So It Begins...  
  
Ken's vision cleared, and he found himself leaning against a tree. He promptly fell over. There was a boy sitting in the branches of the tree who gave him a strange stare.  
  
"All right, Ken?" the boy called in a very familiar voice.  
  
"I'm...good. I'm good, Tai." Ken glanced up. Taichi's hair seemed bigger, and he wore Daisuke's round goggles on his head, not to mention that he seemed a lot younger. It was only three years, but Taichi had changed so much...  
  
A snowflake spiralled from the sky and hit Taichi's nose. He sat up quickly. Ken wasn't quite sure what was happening until another snowflake hit his arm.  
  
"Why's it snowing?" Taichi asked, jumping out of the tree. "It's July!"  
  
And the sky was still clear, Ken noticed.  
  
The snow fell rapidly, piling up, and a short blonde child dressed all in green ran out and jumped into the small snowbank that already stood over an inch high. "I'm gonna build the biggest snowman ever!" the kid shouted.  
  
"Takeru! Be careful!" another blonde boy called, stepping cautiously out of the cabin. Takeru? Ken stared at his former enemy. Jeez, he'd certainly grown up - and what was going on with Yamato's hair? Ken hadn't thought three years to be a long time at all before...  
  
"It's freezing, and I didn't bring a jacket," a redhead moaned, following Yamato. Ken finally pinned her as Sora, and the next child as Jyou, although his hair was certainly shorter.  
  
"Man! And here I was worried I'd catch a summer cold! This is awful!" Just to prove his point, Jyou sneezed, rubbing his arms desperately. He tried to reenter the cabin and was forced to stop so that a girl dressed mostly in pink could step outside.  
  
"Why didn't I pack my fluffy pink snow boots?" she pouted. It took Ken a moment to realize that this was Mimi, with more normal hair, of course. There were originally eight. He'd heard that somewhere. So where were the other two?  
  
Taichi ran over to the cabin and poked his head in. "Koushiro! Get out here! You have to see this!"  
  
Ken looked up and saw a dramatic light show playing across the sky, sudden and beautiful.  
  
"It's magical," Mimi sighed in awe.  
  
Koushiro walked outside, clutching a pineapple laptop to his chest apprehensively. "What is it?"  
  
Sora bit her lip. "Maybe an aurora?"  
  
He shook his head. "You mean Aurora Borealis? The northern lights? Impossible. That's in Alaska. We're too far south."  
  
"Tell that to the snow."  
  
Jyou was practically forced to jump up and down in order to stay warm. "Come on, you guys, we have to get back inside before we all get pneumonia."  
  
Yamato rolled his eyes. "And miss this? The sky is, like, short- circuiting."  
  
Taichi pointed. "What's that?"  
  
It took Ken a moment to see the circle of green light in the sky, and just when he found it, eight beams of soft amber light shot out right at them. Mimi gasped.  
  
"Do you...do you think we need sunscreen?"  
  
Ken ducked instinctively, but the light missed all of the children and landed in the snow at their feet, sending clouds of the stuff into the air.  
  
"What was that?" Jyou asked shakily after a moment.  
  
"Meteors?" Izzy bent over to squint into the snow. "Okay, so it's not meteors."  
  
The holes began to glow, and then objects surrounded in that golden light floated up to each of the children. Ken watched as each of the others grabbed theirs, then reached out and took his own. He recognized it immediately - a digivice. He'd never really seen one, but he'd heard of them, the older models of the D3 items that his adversaries used.  
  
"What are these?" Sora asked, poking hers tentatively.  
  
"Some sort of miniature remote digital apparatus," Koushiro told her. "But where did they come from?"  
  
"Surf's up!" Taichi yelled, almost dropping his digivice in horror. Ken turned to look as a huge wave swelled over their heads, coming up out of nowhere. He realized very quickly that there was no escape, and simply tried to shield his head as the water picked them up and drew them into an endless tunnel of rainbow light. Ken heard the other children screaming, but kept quiet. After all, it had to be a passage to the Digiworld, right? Perfectly normal.  
  
But then...the others didn't know that.  
  
* * *  
  
Ken awoke perched on a tree branch. It was obviously in the Digiworld, as the bark was a deep purple color. He heard a buzzing sound nearby, but it quickly faded. It was familiar, though, some kind of Digimon, perhaps.  
  
He climbed out of the tree, a task that wasn't easy and left him with a scratch on his arm and a bruised knee. He stood up and was almost run over by Jyou.  
  
"Hey, watch it!" Ken yelled.  
  
Jyou paused and hid behind a tree. "Is it still following me?" he gasped, trembling.  
  
"It? What?"  
  
"Aaah!" Jyou shrieked as a seal-like creature zoomed toward him. Ken placed it quickly - Bukamon, In-Training form of Gomamon, Jyou's partner.  
  
"Don't be afraid!" Bukamon chirped.  
  
"Help! Aaaaahhh!" Jyou turned and continued to run, followed by the grey Digimon. Ken followed them, keeping an eye out for Wormmon. Since he had no intention of running just to keep up, this gave him a few minutes to ponder. Would his partner know what had happened three years in the future? Or was Ken alone in possession of that knowledge?  
  
He emerged into a clearing just in time to see Jyou panicking, Bukamon perched on his shoulder, and the other children, sans Mimi, watching him, slightly amused.  
  
"What's wrong with you guys?" Jyou cried. "Don't you see this creature hanging off me? And - and those things standing right there?! They're everywhere! What are they?"  
  
"We're Digimon," the creatures chorused. "Digital monsters."  
  
Taichi thought about that for a moment. "Well, it's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Taichi. This is Sora."  
  
"Nice place," she said, waving a hand to encompass the entire setting. "I mean, except the bugs."  
  
"That's Yamato. The self-proclaimed cool one."  
  
Yamato smirked at Taichi. "No autographs, please."  
  
"Our resident scaredy-cat is Jyou."  
  
Jyou rolled his eyes. "That's not fair, Tai."  
  
Taichi merely ignored Jyou. "Koushiro is the computer expert. This is Takeru, and...hey, Ken!"  
  
Ken stepped closer. "Hi."  
  
"Ken's our genius in general knowledge, not just electronics."  
  
Before Ken could make any kind of response to that, Sora spoke. "What happened to that girl with the funny pink hat?"  
  
"Be nice," Taichi warned her. "Her name is Mimi."  
  
Koushiro snickered. "Perhaps she's picking flowers or going on a nature hike."  
  
"Improbable," Ken noted.  
  
From not too far away, Mimi's screams reached them. "Help me!"  
  
They exchanged a few glances and then ran through a small stretch of trees into another clearing, just in time to see Mimi enter from the other side, screaming and half-sobbing hysterically. She was followed by a leafy Digimon.  
  
Taichi held out his arms in a hold-it-drop-everything sort of gesture. "Mimi! It's okay! That's just - "  
  
They all stopped short upon realizing that Mimi was not running from her partner, but from the giant red beetle that was also chasing her. Kuwagamon, Ken realized. Great.  
  
Taichi yelped. "It's that big bug again!"  
  
Again?  
  
The Kuwagamon dove over them once, then flew off. Mimi fell to her knees, whimpering.  
  
"All right, Mimi?" the green Digimon beside her asked.  
  
"I think so," Mimi said softly.  
  
"Well, Tanemon's here to protect you, and it's okay now."  
  
Sora stepped forward and helped Mimi to her feet. "Yes, it's okay."  
  
"Oh, Sora," Mimi gasped. "What's going on?"  
  
Taichi had pulled out a miniature telescope and was staring out into the forest. "He's coming back!"  
  
They turned and fled, the sound of breaking trees and the shrieking Kuwagamon behind them. They all hit the ground as the creature swooped down, causing him to miss them.  
  
"I want a refund!" Jyou yelled. "This camp is terrible!"  
  
"No more running away!" Taichi told them.  
  
"What else can we do?" Sora asked.  
  
"There's no way we can fight that thing!" Yamato cried.  
  
Koushiro shook his head. "Not and win, anyway."  
  
Ken broke into the conversation. "Might I make a suggestion? That Digimon will be coming back. Running is no good, because it can fly. Your partners are too small to fight it. We need to find somewhere to hide. Where are we, anyway?"  
  
"File Island," Sora's little pink Digimon said.  
  
"Uh-huh. Any caves nearby?"  
  
"Sure. If we go to the cliff and take a right, there's some caves, but it's dangerous. Kuwagamon can't get in, though."  
  
"What choice have we got?" Yamato asked.  
  
"None," Mimi agreed softly. "But - it'll ruin my clothes!"  
  
"It's just down this path!" Koromon cried. As the buzzing of Kuwagamon's wings came closer, they did just that.  
  
The trees ended abruptly and the assorted children and Digimon skidded to a stop. "To the right," Taichi shouted. They took off just as Kuwagamon burst from the bushes and soared out onto the cliff. Mimi tripped and had to be almost dragged back up by Jyou.  
  
Finally, the whirring behind them subsided.  
  
"You think he lost us?" Koushiro asked quietly.  
  
"Kuwagamon? No way," Ken snapped. "He'll get our scent sooner or later." He realized half a second too late that the Ken in this dimension had no way of knowing such a thing. "Our only hope is to get across some sort of water source."  
  
"Or into the caves," Taichi added.  
  
"But there might be worse things /in/ the caves."  
  
"Could be bad things in the water, too."  
  
"Please don't argue," Takeru whispered, clinging to his Tokomon. "That bad bug will find - "  
  
And then he found them.  
  
The attack came from the right, and they barely had time to duck before Kuwagamon flew over them, almost brushing their heads.  
  
"We'll never make it! We have to fight!" Tsunomon squealed. "Digimon, attack!"  
  
As Kuwagamon turned for another fly-over, the tiny Digimon leapt into the air, blowing little pink bubbles with all their might. The beetle Digimon barely noticed, and simply knocked them out of the air with one strong claw.  
  
"No!" Taichi cried, jumping forward to catch Koromon. The others managed to snatch theirs up. Ken saw scrapes on all of the little creatures.  
  
"Koromon, are you crazy? Why'd you do it?" Taichi cried. "You're crazy. You're too little!"  
  
The others murmured sympathetic and frightened comments to their partners, and thus Ken was the only one alert enough to hear Kuwagamon's screech.  
  
"He's ba-ack," the ex-Kaiser groaned. "We need more space. We can't fight in the forest."  
  
"The cliff?" Koromon asked weakly.  
  
"There'd be no room to run, and you can't fight in your condition, anyway," Taichi rebuked his partner gently.  
  
They had no choice, however, since Kuwagamon's characteristic whir seemed to be coming closer. They ran silently, the others carrying their injured partners. Kuwagamon, somewhere behind them, sounded enraged that his prey had escaped yet again.  
  
They hurried out onto the cliff and clustered at the far end. Jyou glanced over the side.  
  
"There won't be any climbing down," he said grimly. "Great, now what? This was a bad idea."  
  
Yamato sighed. "I knew I should've brought my bug spray."  
  
"We have to run again," Taichi said. "We'll double back to the caves, he won't expect that."  
  
"No," Koromon said. "We fight! It's the only way. Stand and fight!"  
  
"He's right!" Koushiro's little Motion cried. "It's time we showed what we're made of!"  
  
Despite the desperate wails of the children, the Digimon escaped and rushed forward, standing in a line to wait for the arrival of the enemy. Ken watched silently, touched deeply by the affection already shown on both sides of the strange partnership. Was this what it would be like with Wormmon? And where /was/ Wormmon, anyway?  
  
Kuwagamon crashed out of the trees and roared, pincers clashing. Ken's eyes were caught by a glowing from behind him and turned to watch. The others didn't seem to notice as their digivices gleamed. Ken glanced at his, still dark, then watched as beams of multi-colored light landed on the Digimon.  
  
"Koromon, digivolve to...Agumon!"  
  
"Yokomon, digivolve to...Biyomon!"  
  
"Motimon, digivolve to...Tentomon!"  
  
"Tsunomon, digivolve to...Gabumon!"  
  
"Tokomon, digivolve to...Patamon!"  
  
"Bukamon, digivolve to...Gomamon!"  
  
"Tanemon, digivolve to...Palmon!"  
  
Suddenly, in the place of the tiny In-Training Digimon were the larger ones that Ken knew better - the Rookies.  
  
"They got...bigger," Taichi said intelligently.  
  
The seven Digimon leapt at Kuwagamon, but were easily beaten back, despite their larger size.  
  
"Poison Ivy!" Palmon cried, long vines shooting from what passed for fingers on her.  
  
"Boom Bubble!" Patamon shot a blasting bubble at the red beetle. That, combined with Tentomon's Super Shocker, was enough to make the creature step back. When he set his foot down, the slippery Gomamon was underneath, causing Kuwagamon to fall over.  
  
"Pepper Breath!"  
  
"Blue Blaster!"  
  
"Spiral Twister!"  
  
Agumon's fireball, Gabumon's blast of blue energy, and Biyomon's green whirlwind hit Kuwagamon dead-on. He fell backward, into the forest.  
  
Koushiro blinked. "They...made vapor-ware out of him."  
  
"Jeez," Ken whispered softly. He hadn't been expecting anything quite so...dramatic. Not out of Rookies.  
  
"Told you we could do it," Agumon said smugly as the seven Digimon walked back to them.  
  
For a moment, happiness reigned, and then was promptly shattered by Kuwagamon's enraged scream.  
  
"No!" Sora yelled as the Digimon stormed back onto the cliffside. He wasted no time, plunging his pincers into the ground.  
  
"We celebrated too soon!" Taichi cried. The children and their partners tried to step back, but they were already at the edge of the cliff, unable to run as the ground cracked, sending them plunging toward the valley below. 


End file.
